And spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning of dog and car, that is. Pax was brushed hard, then trimmed, then bathed, then walked, then brushed several more times. He is now presentable and ready to ride. And, Sue put a good deal of effort to detailing the ride. So, we are getting ready to roll.

We heard our first robin today, but couldn't quite catch a glimpse of it before it moved off.

I remember, as a youngster, going down to the lake on a windy March day, usually one with snow squalls, to watch the ice go out.

Breakup

By Bubba

A powerful wind jostled Henry, sometimes shoving him sideways into the bare branches of a honeysuckle hedge. When he got to the lake he climbed down the little lakeshore bluff and found a snug spot between two big cottonwoods. The wind was humming and whistling high up in the trees, but down here he was out of it.

The sun was playing tag with clumps of cloud. First Henry sat in warm bright light, and watched shadows race all the way across the dull gray ice that covered the lake. Then he shivered as a shadow flew over him and filled the air with snowflakes. Sun, then shadow, snow then sun. And always, even louder than the wind, the groaning of the ice, like a bunch of giants—all with bellyaches.

For a moment the wind dropped and the groaning eased. In the quiet, Henry heard something new—he heard a grinding and a crunching, and then boom after boom. When he looked down he saw that all along the shore the ice had begun to move. The ice was coming ashore, and it was grinding right towards him.

Both up and down the shore the ice was peeling up sand. It was plowing under and lifting up. It was pushing pebbles and stones and then rocks and big rocks, and it was climbing up the bluff.

With a roar, a tent of thick, sandy ice rose up like a mountain. Then it collapsed as another rose on top of it. Henry scrambled out of his hiding place and ran for home. He crashed through the side door, raced up the landing, and slid into the kitchen.

His mother stood there staring at him, her mouth open, her hands full of flour.

“Mom,” Henry said, “the ice is breaking up!”

Before she could say a word in reply Henry had banged back out of the house.

When he got to the lake he avoided his out-of-the-wind spot, but stood in the lee of the biggest cottonwood. The ice was still rumbling and crashing and piling up onshore. It was like a hundred bulldozers all working at once, anything in its way being shifted or crushed.

Henry felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Wow,” his mom said. “You weren’t April foolin’.”

The two of them leaned against the cottonwood, out of the wind, and watched. But it didn’t take very long before a big hole opened in the middle of the lake. Up and down the shore, in both directions, sheets, and slabs, and shards of ice were piled up, all the way up the little bluff. The shoreline had been rearranged, and the lake itself was mostly open water.

“It’s all gone,” Henry said. “That didn’t take long. Yesterday the lake was solid ice, and now it’s all gone.”

Waves were splashing on the ice piles.

“I love it when this happens,” Henry’s mother said. “Look at the way the water sparkles in the sunlight. It seems so fresh and alive after all that dingy ice.”

“Now Spring is really here,” Henry said.

“I think you’re right,” his mother said. “I bet you’ll be swimming by your birthday.”

As Henry and his mom walked back to the house the sun went behind a cloud and a shower of hard, round snow pellets rattled on their hats and coats.

“Maybe Dad will want to go fishing on Saturday,” Henry said.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” his mom replied.